Gisele Bundchen Brazilian Model Search

Gisele joins the CUFA

One of the world’s most influential women and crème de la crème of the fashion industry, Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen, has decided to give one lucky girl the same chance of a life time she had. Gisele will be touring her old stomping grounds in Brazil’s shanty towns, searching for a bright new face and slapping it with a huge modeling contract.

“I feel privileged to be the sponsor of this project,” Bunchen said, recalling that she had been rejected by 42 agents in London at the start of her career, when she was only 17.

“I was finally taken on, on the 43rd try,” said the now 34-year-old, on hand for the contest launch with 30 women aged 18 to 22 vying for fame and fortune.

The production is organized by the Central Union of Slums (CUFA) and a beauty/skin care company with the admirable aim “to boost slum dwellers’s self-esteem.”

“You have to know your good side for photos… to feel comfortable in your own skin to be beautiful and to have a lot of perseverance,” she told contestants. Source: AFP Relax News

Once the contestants have been selected, the second part of the challenge begins. Not unlike the popular “America’s Next Top Model”, a panel of judges will select one fresh face from each of the 27 states in Brazil, with finally to be held in Rio De Janeiro thought the month of August into September.

“Even if she is white, Bundchen’s being here is important because she is from Brazil where there is great racial diversity and she is renowned worldwide,” contestant Rafaella Lemes, 19, from Rocinha shantytown, told AFP.

Showcasing the beautiful diversity of Brazil is a great PR move for the show, as the recent uproar of protesters regarding the under representation of black models in May’s runway shows.